So I've been thinking about all the crap I have to get done these days--look at this list:

• Housework


• Philosophy homework


• Learning Tarot/magick


• Reading and getting rid of books


• Working on website and blogging


• Getting a part-time job


• Saving $$$


• Walking the dogs at a decent hour


• Doing craft projects--knitting, crocheting, learning new stitches, etc.
  

Amazing, says I. Thankfully, someone dropped this cool link (thanks, Sunfell!) and I followed the links and the upshot is that I've decided to start on David Allen's program. I know, yet another book to read--I'm one of those people that's always trying to finish eight books at the same time.

On that front, I'm about a third of the way through the Parsons bio, and this evening I was thinking about how a crater on the dark side of the moon is named after him. If I'm not careful, I may find myself becoming enamored with Jack Parsons. Something about a hot nerdy scientist, I dunno.

So I had that on my mind and pulled this card: The Moon. As I meditated on what it might have to say to me, I started thinking that it doesn't always mean self-deception, but imagination, and I started thinking of myself as that lobster, or another creature, rising out of that pond, and following that path between the towers, into the dark unknown.

I started thinking about other things like the Hundred Acre Wood, and the woods outside Hogwarts, where Harry Potter confronts Valdemort one evening when he's out wandering around.

I checked Waite's Pictorial Key, and it has this to say about the Moon:

The path between the towers is the issue into the unknown. The dog and wolf are the fears of the natural mind in the presence of that place of exit, where there is only reflected light to guide it.

The last reference is a key to another form of symbolism. The intellectual light is a reflection and beyond it is the unknown mystery which it cannot shew forth. It illuminates our animal nature, types of which are represented below--the dog, the wolf, and that which comes up out of the deeps, the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast. It strives to attain manifestation, symbolized by crawling from the abyss of water to the land, but as a rule it sinks back whence it came. The face of the mind directs a calm gaze upon the unrest below; the dew of thought falls; the message is: Peace, be still; and it may be that there shall come a calm upon the animal nature, while the abyss beneath shall cease from giving up a form.

Morty, I wave my granny pants in salute to you!

Just surfing around the net and came upon this piece of awesomeness. You should go there. It is an amazing site with lots of good stuff like forums, links and streaming video. You should check it out, if only for the clips of James Inman, and the ever wonderful RAWilson.

Also, today I was at Barnes & Noble, puttering around and having coffee, when I happened upon a new bio of Jack Parsons.

Strange Angel--by George Pendle, ISBN # 015100997X

Seems to be a little bit better written than John Carter's Sex and Rockets, going deeper into his childhood and literary interests, such as early sci-fi pulp mag "Amazing Stories", as well as the temper of the times he was living in. Indeed, Pendle even does a good job of making rocket science romantic and mystical (as it certainly must have been to Parsons.)

On this perusal, Strange Angel seems like a good read, with lots of background info and references to support the story. I am left with the feeling that I definitely want more than a quick skim of this book at the B & N coffee shop.

For those of you who don't know who Jack W. Parsons was, he was a rocket scientist at Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Labratory in the 40s and early 50s, when he died in a mysterious accidental explosion in his home.

He was also a Thelemite who wrote a book (which I have yet to read, unfortunately) entitled Freedom is a Two Edged Sword. He turned his home into an early hippie commune, that was much talked about in the press.

He hobb-knobbed with the sci-fi intelligentsia, authors such as Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Jack Williamson, and A.E. Van Vogt. It was his association with Elrond Hubbard, himself a pulp
fiction author at the time and the creator of Dianetics, that led to some interesting misadventures. That is all I'll tell you. Go google it, you won't be sorry.

Various & Sundry Things

Well, I was kind of depressed earlier this week, but I think I'm OK now. Part of it having to do with what a damn mess my room is, and having no $$$--which is nobody's fault but mine (spot the Zeppelin lyrics.)

Also, my parent's separation (which I'm sure is permanent, not that I thought it wasn't) is starting to wear on my dad. He has been bitching and moaning about how Mom doesn't love him, etc. He looks at this as Mom doing something to him. He doesn't seem to think about the fact that he didn't really act very lovingly towards her, or ever take notice of the many warnings she gave him.

I love my dad, and we get along most of the time (I could also say the same of my mom), but he really drives me nuts sometimes. He is 70, and it is like he is going senile. He talks incessantly, and he is constantly calling me into the living room when I am busy to look at something on tv, or to push food on me. He is so invasive sometimes I just want to scream, "Jesus, do you EVER shut up?" I find myself wishing he would just die, already, so Mom could come home and we could fix the house up the way she wants it.

The other day My Gay Neighbor came over and had to have me use my key to get into her place, despite the fact that someone (her cousin) was already in the house and could have just answered the door. She introduced me to him gushingly, saying, "She's cool! She can read
your Tarot cards for you!" she ended by stroking my hair with a flourish. OK.

I will be doing a Tarot reading here tomorrow, but I'm afraid the Tarot Hoedown will be going on a sabbatical, due to philosophy homework.

Regarding the philosophy textbook, I am noticing it is about as subtle as a heart attack--"How extensively have you examined the beliefs that have come to define who you are and how you live your daily life?...Are you, say, a Xian who believes in one God, because that is how you were
raised but had you been raised in India, you would have been a Hindu, believing in many Gods?"--and using the existence of God and the issue of abortion in examples explaining what syllogisms and disjunctive statements are!

I can just see some of the soccer moms and yuppie chicks who bring babies to class(there were a couple that I saw) dropping away. I know at least one of them will loudly declaim (either to the enire class, or they will seek me out--because I'm sure they will see me as one who really cares what they think) how much this material is challenging to their beliefs. Some will see this as good, and may find it refreshing for their mundane muggle brain, and others will simply cave in at the thought of actually contemplating what motivates their lives.

I am around the same age as many of these women (and the class is almost all women) and I can visualize them being the same kind of kids who picked on me in school. My only crime against them: being someone who preferred reading and thinking for myself, rather than following the herd in a mindless attempt to be popular and wear the right clothes, have the right hairstyle, etc.

Now that they are old and tapped out, after pounding out who knows how many babies, they are going to attempt logical and independent thought?

I salute those who actually succeed in freeing their minds. The rest, I will be laughing at you on the inside.